


Falling

by phoebemaybe



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Not My Game of Thrones
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 03:22:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17154344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoebemaybe/pseuds/phoebemaybe
Summary: In the midst of battle, a queen falls from the sky, off of the back of her injured child. With nothing to curb her rapid descent to the earth. From the ground, the Warden of the North watches with his heart in his throat and dread in his veins. How will he save the love of his life?





	Falling

**Author's Note:**

> Merry Christmas, Mila! From your Jonerys Secret Santa~ I really do hope you enjoy your present. Angst with a Fluffy ending? I tried my best hehe.
> 
> Lovely moodboard created by my good friend, Iris. (midqueenally on Tumblr)

She was falling, plummeting off the back of her wounded child. There was nothing to slow her descent, only cold winter air. She was falling so quickly. There was nothing to cushion her landing besides the awaiting expanse of solid, icy ground.

Out of the corner of his eye he glimpsed another horde of mindless walking corpses beginning to swarm. The hair-raising shrieks of the dead, signalling the call that beckoned more deceased soldiers to gather caught his ear. Their fleshless skeletal arms were held high, outstretched and in their boney fingers were miscellaneous rusty weapons that once shone with life as their owners did.

They would soon be upon him, charging at an unhuman speed on their unnatural staggering legs. Yet, he couldn’t tear his sight away from the descending figure of the woman whom his heart belonged to. He watched with unblinking eyes, utterly helpless as the love of his life hurtled towards land. Absolute dread seized his soul and turned his blood to ice.

She was too far away. He knew with a certainty that he would not be able to reach her in time. He wouldn’t be able to save her.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he stood frozen on the spot. The sound of his heart pounding hard against his ribs reverberated like a stampede of wild horses in his ears.

No one, all his allies, none of them seemed to notice their queen diving headfirst to earth like a fallen angel who lost her wings. Though, he couldn’t blame them for fighting for their lives in the face of their enemies. Even if said enemies bore the faces of your dead comrades and family, they were no longer who they used to be. They were out for blood under the command of their ruthless leader. Up in the sky, dragons flew, the undead chasing after the living. One emerald green and the other wore the blue sickly tinge of death. One breathed a flame of the warmest amber, the other spat out flames the hue of the coldest ice. Once brothers now turned enemies. Spare no one if you wanted to make it out alive, humans and creatures alike.

The ear-piercing war cry of the dead resounded like a scream directly into his ears.

_They were here._

Beside him, a panting Tormund returned their war cry with a guttural one of his own. Raising his dragon glass tipped axe, he brought it down hard, sending the Wight before him flying to the side. A trickle of blood edged its way down his face from the large gash along his hairline but he kept fighting, hacking down one undead man after the other. 

Winterfell, the place he had identified as his home for so very long had never felt colder. There was close to nothing that resembled his home anymore. The walls of his childhood home had crumbled down to their foundations around him. The library tower lay on its side. The high walls that once defended the people of Winterfell from attack for centuries now were largely reduced to piles of rock under the barrage of dead men and dragon fire. The buildings that were once the main features of many of the adventures he had as a child were now nothing but pulverised gravel and debris, still aflame with intermingling plumes of blue and orange fire. Blood and death covered the grounds he used to play and train on with his siblings. The carcasses of men and those of the living dead lay strewn across the grounds of the courtyard all around him.

If Dany were to perish, without her, his world would be stripped entirely of any trace of light and love and happiness that he had only just come to associate with that elusive smile of hers. The one that graced her lips so rarely.  

Never had he felt more alone in the world, powerless and afraid. 

* * *

His pain filled cry cut through her heart like a blade. Two spears of ice soared through the air. One sliced clean through the membranes of her child’s left wing, leaving large gaping tears in his beautiful webbed appendage. The other lodged itself deep into the exposed tissue at the base of his right wing, deeming flight impossible. Listing sharply to the side, her precious boy roared and whimpered under her, furling and unfurling his wings, frantically flapping them, trying to keep afloat in the air but to no avail. 

And then, she was airborne, shook free off of Drogon’s back. She was not flying, but falling alongside her child. Two dragons with their wings clipped, spiralling towards the ground. 

* * *

This could not be the end for them. It simply couldn’t. He would not give up without a fight. He would not let the Night King win that easily, that coward who sat upon his corpse of a horse atop of the hill in the distance, looking down upon the raging battle. How dare he aim his weapon at her? How dare he shoot two of her children down from the sky? How dare he turn one of them into his pet, just for the selfish reason that a dragon, even a dead one could be of use to him? Inside him despair and fear slowly morphed into determination, empowered by anger for that heinous being. 

Tightening his grip around the pummel of his sword, Jon gritted his teeth. Despite his fear, he knew he had to do something, for he did not wish to live in a world where his queen no longer existed in. A sole desperate thought ricocheted through his mind - there had to be a way to catch her before she hit the ground. There was only one thing he could think of that might save her life. A long shot it would be but it was the only option.

_Rhaegal, please save her._

He prayed that their emphatic bond was strong enough.Copying his comrades’ motions, he dove into battle. Heart constricting with each harsh breath he took, he began to cut his way through the boundless sea of blue-eyed soulless monsters, towards the place where his love would land. He had to reach her. He had to hold her in his arms again. He did not want this to be the last time he had her in his life. He refused to let their story end like this, not when it only had a few pages barely scribbled in. They still had plenty of chapters to fill with words that told of a brand-new story, wholly their own where their two separate lives were intertwined as one. 

_Please save her._

* * *

What a desolate sight to see before one’s demise. The queen observed idly as speckles of snow swirled down from the heavens, reminiscent of ashes of those who were torched by dragon fire. The bitter cold wind rushed by her ears, plucking on the locks of her silver hair making them whip around her face.

If this was to be the end, she longed to gaze upon those brown soulful eyes of the man she loved, not the grey cloudy sky. She yearned to hold him to her the way he liked, with his head pillowed on her chest as they lay in bed waiting for sleep to pull them under. She longed to touch him, to kiss him just one more time. Alas, it might not be possible with him so far away enslaved to the powers of gravity, in a fight to save their people. All they would have were the clandestine memories of their time together. Of nights passionately tangled, skin to skin, under sheets of silk and layers of fur, stolen moments wherever and whenever they chanced upon them, exchanging fleeting loving kisses or simply just talking. She had so much to tell him, so much of her life to share with him still, to let him know that she loved him with every fibre of her being.

_Oh._

Pressing her palms to her belly as best as she could, Dany wanted to cry. If this was the end for her, her greatest regret would be the little one nestled in the confines of her womb that Jon had yet to know about. Their little miracle that they would never get the chance to meet, to hold. A baby that was a product of their love. A baby that would never get to see the light of day. A baby that would never receive the love of their mama and papa. Another baby of hers taken away from her before their time, one she never believed she could ever conceive no less.

 _Mama loves you very much. I’m so sorry little one, mama failed to protect you._  

The gloomy sky with its matching grey clouds overhead grew smaller and smaller into a pin prick of light before everything faded to black behind the cover of her eyelids. A lone tear seeped out of the corner of her eye and floated up towards the heavens.  

A dark shadow shrouded the land momentarily as a flash of emerald green swooped over their heads, wings spread out wide in a glide, heading toward the queen. The dragon swooped so low that his talons scraped along the ground, ploughing through the Wights as if they were a field of wheat bending and breaking in half, effortlessly under the strain of a strong gust of wind.

Hope sparked to life, magnifying in volume before solidifying within his chest. Warmth surged through Jon’s veins like wild fire, prying the cold clutches of dread away from around his heart.

_It worked!_

With renewed vigour, Jon thrust his blade into the fleshless thorax of the Wight before him. Plunging it straight through with a grunt, cleaving its ribs in half and driving the blade upwards, knocking its head clean off of its shoulders. Following his path through the chaos of bodies and clashing weapons, a dire wolf with fur of snow silently prowled. Its blood red eyes gleamed with the thrill of the battle. Lunging at his headless undead opponent, Ghost tore off its left leg, sending the rotting creature toppling to the ground.

From the sky, snow had started to form, landing and melting before sliding down Jon’s face. Side by side, man and wolf parted the ocean of Wights. Felling dead man after dead man as the duo made their way towards their queen.

* * *

Something that sounded very much like a roar cut through the haze in her mind, parting the fog enveloping it, pulling her back to the surface of consciousness. Her eyelids felt as if they were lined with lead. Compelling them to move, cracking them open a smidge, she found herself sprawled on her side across a green moving surface. The thing under her rumbled and shook, jostling her with its vibrations. Flexing her fingers lethargically, Dany smoothed them over the surface under her. Cold, smooth and scaly. Not unlike dragon scales, she thought pensively.

_What happened?_

A pair of gloved hands slipped under her head, turning her over to lie on her back. A flutter of gentle but insistent fingers drifted across her temple, tracing down her cheeks to her neck and pressing deftly against its side. Someone was searching for a pulse.

_Was she dead?_

“Dany?” A distinctly male voice pieced through the sensation of wool stuffed in her ears. “Thank the gods she’s still breathing.” The person muttered to themselves. Their voice sounded so far away as though spoken to her from above the surface of the water she was drowning in. “Can you hear me? Say something please.”

A warm body moved to settle behind her prone figure. Firm hands gripped her by the shoulders and lifted her up into a sitting position. The fur pelt of an animal tickled her as the warm pair of hands gathered her into an embrace, one protectively cradling the back of her head and the other pressed against the middle of her back. Her nose instantaneously filled with the familiar, comforting scent of leather, perspiration, tinged with a hint of something metallic that her mind couldn’t place.

“Jon?”

“Seven Hells, you gave me quite the fright! I thought I lost you!” Tremulous words upon a current of relief were breathed into the mass of braids that wove through her hair. 

“How am I alive?” 

“I sent Rhaegal after you. I wasn’t even sure it was going to work but I had to try. And thankfully, he heard my plea and caught you.” Just fifty feet from the ground. So close, he came to losing her. Fervently, his fingers grasped at the smaller hand of his beautiful queen, pressing her open palm to his thundering heart.

“Hmm… Aren’t you pleased that I convinced you to give dragon riding a try?” Her words came out small, ending in a light chuckle that disappeared into the crook of his neck.

His brilliant, wonderful, resilient queen. Still able to make him smile after a narrow escape from death. After a fall like that,  _he_ should be the one making sure that  _she_ was fine. “You have no idea how glad I am, my love. Are you all right?”

His queen’s head bobbed sluggishly under his chin.

“Good. Can you hold on? We still have a war to win and I’m not about to give up just yet.”

Wordlessly, Dany nodded again. Taking a deep breath, she cleaved herself away from the warmth of Jon’s body. Blinking rapidly a few times, she shifted to sit astride across her child’s back properly. Her hands easily found the familiar protruding spikes along the base of Rhaegal’s neck. Gripping tight, she looked up, finally allowing herself to take in the scene before her.

All the breath in her lungs seemed to evaporate into nothing, leaving a cavernous painful hole behind. A hole that swiftly filled to the brim with one pure, dominating emotion – rage. Fury sprung to life, pulsing through her body, chasing away any lasting weariness from her mind. 

 _Her children!_  

Images of her babies growing up together floated through her mind’s eye. Rhaegal and Viserion were inseparable. They did everything as one. The queen saw her little dragons playfully fighting over pieces of meat, bodies curled around each other seeking warmth as they slept amongst a nest of pillows when they were still small enough to ride on her shoulders.  

Jets of blue flames shot over their heads, missing them by mere inches. The queen scrunched her eyes up tight, ducking down low, pressing her chest flat against Rhaegal’s back. Rhaegal furled his torso around them, shielding his mother and his rider against the brunt of Viserion’s flames.

_Her poor baby._

His warm creamy golden colouring had dulled into a dirty grey. His once magnificent wings of glimmering red orange tinted with black were now perforated with holes in their webbings, looking like sails of a ship ripped apart by a raging storm. Tattered shreds flapped in the wind as he hovered unnaturally in the air. His once intelligent eyes of emerald had turned a chilling, lifeless glacial blue. He was no longer her beautiful boy but an abomination just like his master.

 _His master_.

It was as if all of her worst nightmares had come to life. Dragons were not meant to be slaves. Not only had the Night King killed her baby, he ripped his chance at eternal peace away, turning him into an undead monster, a weapon of mass destruction.

With the emerald green dragon’s neck exposed to him, the undead one dove forward. His deadly sharp talons dug in deep, slicing through scales, skin and muscle. Rhaegal reared back, flinching away from the source of his pain, releasing a roar in agony that diminished into a whine. Dragon scales were strong and impenetrable but they couldn’t stand a chance against prolonged battering from dragon fire and claws. Rhaegal needed to fight back but, he wasn’t doing so. Perhaps still recognising his brother under the dense shroud of death, he stood on the defensive side of the fight, whimpering softly but still persevering through the damage his brother was inflicting.

Violet eyes meeting her child’s large bronze one, within it she saw conflict, confusion, anger and tears. She saw the question in his gaze, asking her if he should lash out, if he should do harm to his sibling. A shard of pain lodge itself within Dany’s heart. The mother of dragons watched on in dismay. It wasn’t supposed to be like this! They were brothers!

_That hideous bastard had to die._

“We will get him, Dany. We will end him. By nightfall, he will be obliterated.” Jon’s voice was resolute and unwavering, whispered by her ear. His arms came around her waist to reach for the spikes. His fingers closed around hers as they held on together. “For your children and for all that he has killed and turned.” 

* * *

A new dawn approached and the dead had well and truly returned to dust. Their master lay with his body a pitiful mound of icicle shards in the midst of the war thorn battle field. The walking dead had disintegrated and were soon to be buried under the falling snow, finally given the chance of an eternal restful slumber. The fallen men were set alit for no risks could be taken. The remaining survivors now huddled together in temporary encampments, depending on each other for comfort, to heal the wounded and recuperate. A sombre cloud seemed to drape over them all. The battle was won, a hard-earned victory but all of that at what cost? So many lives had been lost and all that was left of the main governing power in the North were lumps of rubble and skeletons of rock. 

Lifting a corner of the fur pelt serving as a blanket, lying across Dany’s lap, Jon slipped under it to join her. He scooted closer to her on the pellet. He couldn’t resist pressing a kiss to her forehead as she promptly tucked herself into his side. For several long, blessed moments, the two of them simply lay cuddled together. Each relishing in the fact that their respective hearts were beating strong and that breath still circulated within their lungs.

“Why didn’t you tell me Dany? If I had known…”

The maester had long left the queen’s tent. However, the life changing news he had presented to the Warden of the North earlier, Jon was confident that it would stay with him for the rest of his existence.

“If you knew, you wouldn’t have let me go with you. You would’ve made me go into hiding with the women and children. I didn’t want that. I truly believed that I could brave the battle and come out unscathed because I made you a promise. We would destroy the Night King together and you know my word is my vow. I won’t apologize for doing what was right, for doing my duty.”

_Her duty as their queen._

Her bottom lip trembled with the well of tears that sprang forth from her eyes. “Oh, Jon! Our people! We’ve lost so many of our people. People who trusted me to keep them safe, to lead them towards a better future. Instead, they lost their lives! And my children!” Her babies were injured, their bodies littered with wounds that would take a long time to heal. “I should have protected them better. I should have…” Her voice cracked. Beads of moisture slid down her cheeks at the thought of all they had lost and all they had endured.

Wrapping his arms around her shaking form, he pulled her close. The warmth of her trembling body in the enclosure of his arms had him silently thanking all the powers that be for returning her to him. Too many of their people had perished in the past day and a half. His world would have stopped spinning if she no longer existed in it. His queen with the biggest heart and the weight of the world on her petite shoulders. He couldn’t find the right things to say that would ease her pain. He was never really good with words. All he could hope to do was be there for her, to shoulder some of that burden that she carried with her constantly. To be her listening ear when she needed one and to dry her tears when she wept for all that she had experienced, all that she had loved and lost.

The two of them clung to one another for a long while, each mourning for the lives of their friends and loyal followers that had be given in hopes of securing a better future. They both knew that inevitability of casualties that came with warfare. Not everyone would be lucky enough to make it out with their lives intact. They were one of the fortunate few and for that they were grateful.

Rubbing at the drying tears running down her cheeks, blinking away the droplets that still clung to her lashes, Dany confessed between hiccups and sniffles, with her face buried in her lover’s tear drenched cotton tunic, “I do apologize for not telling you about this baby of ours sooner. I only found out about our child the eve before the battle. I should have told you once I knew. There was simply no chance to.”

“I know, love.” Jon’s fingers combed through her hair from the crown of her head, down to the ends, setting up a soothing rhythm. Up and down. Up and down. He loved the feel of her hair, no matter how many times his fingers got lost in those luscious locks of silver gold. Dany had always wanted a child. Despite her telling everyone including herself that she couldn’t conceive and that her dragons were more than enough. “From now on, we have to be more vigilant.”

“We must.” 

Tipping her head up, she met those deep brown, soulful eyes of her solemn pillar of support that she so adored. They really were one of the lucky few indeed. He was still there, by her side. 

Jon tightened his arm around his love, drawing her further into him until her soft body was draped snugly over his reclined one. Her violet eyes that still shone with unshed tears were beginning to take on a red tinge. Her cheeks were ruddy, decorated with streaks of salt. Her lips were pressed together into a thin line. She was breathtakingly lovely in her sorrow just as she was in every light her saw her in. Thumb finding her chin, he gave it a little tug, loosening the pressure on her rosy pink lips. The beautiful queen shot him a tired smile. His darling exhausted dragon queen and the mother of his child.

Leaning down, the father to be caught his lover by surprise with a simple touch of his lips to hers. They were just as supple as the first kiss they shared upon her ship all those months ago. He could taste the salt that lingered from her tears, entwined with her own unique sweetness upon his tongue. Her kisses provided him with solace, herding away all the darkness and doubt that still loomed over them all even just for a brief moment. 

There was just one more fight to conquer, the final battle that would determine the fate of Westeros. In the arms of her lover, basking in the tenderness of his caresses, the queen silently vowed that she would win. She would change the course of history. In honour of the people who gave their lives, for the future of the child growing in her belly, for humanity to have peace once and for all.                                                                                             

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you guys liked this little fic! Please don't be too harsh on me. It's my first time writing action scenes and my second time writing angst lol. Do tell me your thoughts down below in the comments if you can! Thanks for reading!
> 
> Have a great Christmas everyone~


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